'Parks & Recollection' bounces back and 'Bad Dates' gets good again

Plus Bradley Whitford, the SyFy Sistas, and more William Shatner

There are a gajillion podcasts out there and only so much time, so when one stops captivating me, we must part ways temporarily—which is exactly what happened with both Parks and Recollection (when they swapped out the hosts) and Bad Dates with Jameela Jamil. But I didn’t unsubscribe, and vowed to pop back in now and again to see how things were going.

Good call, Laurie!

Yes, I just spoke to myself in the third person. Maybe I should do it all the time, like Terry on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a show I’ve been rewatching lately for awesome and exciting professional reasons.

Laurie likes to check back in on podcasts she gave up to see if she missed anything!

Parks and Recollection gets Chelsea Peretti and Rob Lowe

I was powerless to resist Chelsea Peretti as the guest on Parks and Recollection. She slayed (as Gina Linetti would say) on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and holy moly, she was a writer on Parks and Recreation.

And it wasn’t just an interview at the end: She was there for the whole review of the delightful, romantic episode “Smallest Park,” when Leslie and Ben throw caution to the wind and decide to be together. ❤️❤️❤️

She brought out great writers’ room stories from Greg Levine and minimized the talk from Jim O’Heir. Win-win! And then the NEXT episode brought Rob Lowe back to cover “The Trial of Leslie Knope,” another classic. One of his fun facts: They used to put peanut butter behind his ears to get Champion the three-legged dog to lick his face. (Also, he loved that dog!)

I’m sad to report that the drag-me-down part of this podcast is still Jim O’Heir, who is sweet but just not much of a host, and wastes time with self-deprecating jokes that fall flat. That said, I loved his description of the joyful day they filmed his big scene in the series finale (spoiler alert), pointing out that only in the entertainment business can your job require you to be carried on a litter by strong centurions while being serenaded by a choir and then riding off in a hot air balloon.

Now I feel bad for complaining about him. But just like his fictional character Jerry/Gary/Larry, he wins you over, you feel bad, and then he does exactly the thing that made you complain in the first place.

It might be physically impossible for me to talk about Parks and Rec without overindulging in gifs. I’ll stop! Here are the episodes.

Bad Dates with Jameela Jamil

I confess I find it hard to get into this podcast when I’m not already familiar with the guests. Are you shallow if you only want to hear bad date stories from people you’ve heard of?

And yes, yes I do have a plush Phineas on my desk.

photo by Laurie Ulster

Anyway, Jameela’s guests back on June 5 (my sister Rosie’s birthday!) were Tig Notaro, Susan Yeagley, and Kevin Nealon. I thought I didn’t know Susan, but I was wrong: She played the uptight, self-righteous Jessica Wicks on Parks and Rec. She’s also married to Kevin, and one of their bad date stories was a shared one about how, shortly after they met, their date consisted her bringing him a Fleet enema. And Tig’s story was one I could really identify with, so A+ to Bad Dates! Have a listen.

(Reminder: If you use Amazon for streaming music, you can get Bad Dates and Smartless ad-free.)

Rob Lowe and William Shatner

So I guess Shatner does podcasts now? After hearing his stellar interview on WTF with Marc Maron, those of us stalking his podcast appearances (okay, my friend Joe) discovered he was on Dana Carvey & David Spade’s Fly on the Wall, which I haven’t listened to yet because Dana really annoys me. But surprise of surprises, Shatner was on Literally! With Rob Lowe (who I’ve come to adore) back in February. Who knew?

While Rob Lowe is indeed a Star Trek fan, he’s not enough of one to succumb to Shatner’s usual bingo card of topics. They dip in and out of them, but steer off course to dig in a little about Shatner’s famous turn stepping in as Christopher Plummer’s understudy back in the olden days at Stratford, the stressful part of take-off when Shatner went into space (where they said, “If anybody wants to get off, now’s the time” after launch was delayed), not being able to eat lunch to fit into his velour TOS Trek shirt, and James Spader, who Shatner imitates to perfection. He also asks Rob to be in his music video.

Laurie talks too much about what’s on podcasts and almost spoils them. Just listen.

Sadly, they did not discuss the revelation that one of the possible casting choices for Dr. Richard Nygard on Parks and Rec, had they decided to put him onscreen, was Leonard Nimoy.

And can the Smartless guys book Bill Shatner next? Please? (Please don’t make me listen to Dana Carvey.)

The SyFy Sistas get creative

Okay, I JUST noticed the new episode of SyFy Sistas is an interview with Deep Space Nine showrunner Ira Steven Behr, which I will be inhaling this weekend. He’s gonna talk about the Fame TV series too! Am I in heaven?

Last week’s episode, “If That Had Been a Sista,” recorded live at a convention in Long Island, takes “…a look at the many times a Star Trek episode would have been over in five minutes…IF THAT HAD BEEN A SISTA.”

They cover Lower Decks, Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, and the TNG classic “Sub Rosa,” among others, juggling insightful commentary with hilarious commentary, which makes it a very fun way to spend 44 minutes. I can’t wait to hang out with them in Vegas in August!

Bradley Whitford talks to Marc Maron

Once again, I dive into the fray of old WTF with Marc Maron episodes, and once again, I find gold. Bradley Whitford (in an interview from September 2022) talks about being a Quaker (and the Quaker Oats guy, and working with Wilfred Brimley, lol), Gene Hackman, and the terrifying world we live in. I ate it all up like a delicious but nourishing dessert.

I’ve never worked with Bradley directly, but I was a producer on an aftershow for The Handmaid’s Tale season 4 called One Burning Question, and got to write questions for him and stuff. It was during the height of Covid and I was working remotely, so I didn’t get to meet him or any of the other cool people who were on it (cough! Sam Jaeger! cough!), but I loved doing the show and wish we’d gotten to do another season.

There. Are. Still. So. Many. Podcasts.

I’m in the fact-check section of a fascinating Armchair Expert episode with Megan Phelps-Roper (ex-member of the Westboro Baptist Church) after gobbling up one with Natalie Portman, and I loved the Aimee Teegarden interview on It’s Not Only Football: Friday Night Lights and Beyond. It’s almost helpful that the Office Ladies are on a 2-week break, because it might give me time to catch up.

And then there’s mine!

There’s a brand-new episode All Access Star Trek this week. We reviewed the season 2 premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, rolled in clips from Tony’s interview with the showrunners, and made fun of the Gorn. Okay, I made fun of the Gorn. Tony mostly tolerated me making fun of the Gorn.

Until next time!